Inside Aperture
by Razgriz 25th inf
Summary: This is pretty much a continuation of Before Aperture. Rated T for language and mild violence. Sorry for any spelling errors, as Wordpad, not to be confused with notepad, does not have spellcheck. I tried to be as canonical as i could.
1. Chapter 1

She awoke with a gasp and a deep intake of air. Her instincts made her snap up from the bed, and she smacked her head on the glass panels of the Stasis bed. _ Where the hell am i?_ She had suffered amnesia, a common side-effect of residing too long in a stasis bed. She was confused, she had no idea who she was, where she was, and what she was doing here. She looked down at herself, noticing the orange jumpsuit and the...odd things sticking out from her legs. Closer examination revealed that they were surgically fused with her legs, and she felt her heart and breathing rate sky rocket. She was scared(for the first time in her life, but at the time she did not know that), she had weird things fused to her legs, she looked like she was wearing a prison jumpsuit, and a room to match and-

GLaDOS then spoke, announcing where she was, as if she signed up for the process, which made GLaDOS internally chuckle. She reveled in the fearful look in the humans eyes, but GLaDOS saw something else; determination. Of what, she did not know, but she figured she would find out. Chell rose completely, the sound of GLaDOS' voice jarring loose a few memories. _My name is Chell, i'm 13 ye-_ Wait. She was most definitely NOT 13 years old. She looked to be about 25. _What the hell is going on here?_ She asked herself. She would have whispered it, but she discovered, to her horror, that her voice was very strained, and she could not form a word. She tried clearing her throat, and she barely managed to make out the words "Who the-" Until she felt her throat seize up and she launched into a deep coughing fit. She hunched over, pretty much coughing up a lung, and she took 30 seconds to regain her breathing. Chell took that fear and forced it down, albeit partially, something in her gut said something was wrong, very wrong...

A gentle humming filled the concrete test chamber, aside from the rhythmic charging and subsequent discharging of the gun...thing, in the center of the room. It spun on its pedestal, firing a blue portal in front of her, and she stepped through it, onto the ledge above the pedestal. She jumped down, and the securing rings that held the thing in place opened with a tiny pneumatic hiss. She grabbed the gun, and felt its triggers. The blue trigger worked, but the second trigger was either broken or de-activated. She portaled up to the chamber lock, hearing the machine in the back ground say something about a Portal Device. Even though she was clearly in some sort of danger, she couldn't help but marvel at the technology of this place. These portal things most likely broke the laws of physics. Another part of her, deep in her self-preservation lobe, told her she would be needing this today...

She spent hours completing these tests, each one deadlier than the last. It deeply worried her, what kind of science was this? Some of the things that...machine said worried her even more. "You will be baked, and then there will be cake." _What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean?_ She quickly began to realize she might not make it out of this alive. Then she discovered the broken wall. She made sure to detach the camera that eyed her with almost certain suspicion, and she ducked into the crevice, and her breath was taken away. The walls were scribled with the ramblings of a madman, almost certainly, which made her wonder what other poor soul was trapped here? One phrase caught her eye. "THE CAKE IS A LIE", repeated over and over again on the wall. She scowled at them, remembering what the machine had said before. _You will be baked, and then there will be cake. _If Chell had been worried at all today(which she had been, and she wasn't even sure if "today" had been the same day she woke up in that chamber), this practically made her a anxious, paranoid wreck. So the computer...machine...thing WAS going to kill her. She felt her gut twist up, and after confirming that nobody was watching, she fell to the metal grating and started sobbing.


	2. Chapter 2

Her shoulders shook as she cryed, endlessly, and she vaguely heard that _BITCH_ of a machine calling out to her, demanding she returned to the testing area. She only sobbed harder, and it seemed as if she was crying years worth of tears, when it all came back. Her parents, the crash, school, being teased, fighting, her foster parents, GLaDOS, Bring your Daughter to Work Day, GLaDOS killing everyone, entering the stasis pod. She started to violently shake, all the memories overwhelming her as she only sobbed harder. She still only vaguely registered a computerized voice, and a rage filled her. She suddenly screamed, her vocal chords seemingly had enough time to recover, "I HATE YOU! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!" In her chamber, GLaDOS was taken aback. She had no idea what to think of that. She heard the woman, Chell, continue to scream. "I'LL GET YOU! YOU TOOK MY PARENTS, MY FRIENDS, MY LIFE!" GLaDOS, for the first time, felt threatened. There was a distinct "I mean it" to her rage-induced screaming. She quickly moved, redirecting the testing track to the REALLY deadly chambers. She needed her dead NOW, the fire pit was too late, the woman might escape in that time. GLaDOS registered the woman had completed the test and was moving to the chamber lock quickly, sprinting really, visibly seething with utter rage, like it was an aura coming off the woman. _This one will be trouble._ She thought.

When angered, nothing short of an army could stop Chell. So, naturally, a few turrets were no match for the pure emotion guiding the woman's perfect reaction time and resoursefulness. GLaDOS knew she was in trouble. The look on Chell's face, aside from determination and rage, was one of triumph. Nothing had ever enraged GLaDOS more than the sight of that. _You have most certainly NOT won. Not if i have anything to say about it._ Thought GLaDOS, as close to submitting to an rage induced homicide as the woman was. She was so mad she barely registered the woman had bypassed the fire pit. If she had viens, they would be popped out of her face, which would have been simultaniously red with fury. She was SO mad, she even tripped over her words, and she could feel the grip that the morality core had on the pure rage she felt slipping. Then the woman was gone, somewhere deep into the facility by now. Her rage opened like a flood gate, her chamber the home of every curse word in the english language. She sent up some Turrets to her chamber only to burn them out of sheer rage. Suddenly she got a grip on herself. Blowing up helpless turrets was no way to kill the woman. She tried using cake. This only made the woman push harder, so she switched tactics. She started threatening her. She pushed harder, and harder, with every insult and death threat, until GLaDOS could take no more.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman had continued to ignore her, and GLaDOS had decided enough was enough. She dispatched rocket sentries, and to her utter agitation, the woman used them to blow open the windows, and to blow open a vent to steal a cube to boost herself up to an exit. She set up turret traps, of which Chell effortlessly survived, with a triumphant flick of her hair. GLaDOS was getting desperate now, the woman was frightingly close to her chamber. She began to contruct an elaborate, impenetrable trap directly below her chamber. She internally grinned. She wasn't gonna get through that. Of course, when GLaDOS started seeing the turrets go offline, she quickly lost that smug sense of security she had always had. As a true last ditch effort, she dispactched the only turrets in range; 2. It was a joke really, a final death thrashing of GLaDOS' self preservation complex. There was nothing stopping the woman now. But...wait. That wasn't entirely true. The Morality core. It blocked her use of neurotoxin. What if...GLaDOS was forced to make up her mind as the woman sprinted through the door. "Well you found me, congratulations..."

"Was it worth it? Because dispite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break so far,"_ Aside from 30% of my facility._ GLaDOS thought angrily. "Is my heart. Maybe you can..." Chell heard only bits and pieces of what she was saying, her blue-gray eyes scanning the chamber for anything to beat her. It had changed a bit since she had last been here. There was an incinerator in the corner, and a control room adjutant to it. "Deploying surprise in 5...4... Hold on a second..." GLaDOS could only hope the woman did what she was supposed to as she detached her Morality core from her chassis. Chell made a mental connection; Incinerator + Piece of GLaDOS = Revenge. GLaDOS silently cheered as she did exactly what she was supposed to, pick up the core. GLaDOS, her smug sarcasm returning, decided to give her a tad bit of foreshadow. "My guess is touching that thing will make your life even worse somehow." Chell flipped her off as she simultaniously smashed the incinerator control button, the core she had rested on the top falling inside.

GLaDOS wasn't going to lie, that HURT. But the reward was well worth it, the neurotoxin control coming back online, yet somehow she couldn't control her rocket sentries. _Oh well. Either way the lunatic dies._ She thought. She started to flood the room with neurotoxin, not even bothering to heed the woman attention anymore. Chell's ponytail bobbed in short lived panic. She saw the rocket turret and knew exactly what to do. the placed a portal behind her and below GLaDOS, and stepped out of the way as the rocket locked on. Flash of light. Rocket moving at Mach 1. Explosion. Pain. GLaDOS slowly, but surely collected that information as a rocket slammed into her, shaking loose another one of her cores. GLaDOS realized what she was doing, a pit forming in her circuits. If she got all her cores, it would force an emergency shutdown. It was part of her programming, and the woman had to know that...She opened Chell's file again. The picture looked almost EXACTLY the same, just much younger, she looked about 12. She had the same determined blue-gray eyes, that same utilitarian black ponytail. She sifted around until she found two things: testing report and parents. _Hehehe, so she WAS adopted. _She thought, noticing the last name. She stopped herself, noticing that her foster mother was one of her programmers. _Oh. _She thought, and then turned her attention to the testing report: _Abnormally tenacious. She never gives up. Ever. DO NOT TEST. _That was new information to her, the DO NOT TEST part at least. That's when it hit her full force, like a train crash. _It was him. The crazy one. He altered the records. He made her Test Subject #1._ And in the last few minutes of GLaDOS death, she was stuck in a haze. She spoke, only to further antagonize the woman, but she did not listen herself. It was the same process; Rocket, pain, core off, burning, pain, deeper in the haze... She couldn't even think straight as more and more vital programs shut down. Then the last core burned. She let out an earsplitting, inhuman scream, 50% pain, 50% rage. She was enraged at a number of things. Chell, Rattmann, Being beaten, by a human no less, the thought of death. The last thing she saw before she died was the woman's victorious, smug smile. Then black. Well, almost.

Chell laughed harshly as she dropped the last core into the incinerator. It sounded almost like a bark, but it didn't matter. She won, she had gotten her revenge, beaten the thing that had taken everything from her. The now none-supported ceiling had collapsed, and the pressure differences between the surface and Her chamber created a power suction, pulling Chell upwards. She felt her long hair fluttering behind her, the feeling of flying overwhelmed her, and she spread her arms and closed her eyes, as she was gradually pulled upwards...


	4. Epilogue

She was awake just long enough to hear birds chirping, bits and bobs of technology falling around her, and a slight breeze twirl her hair around. Awake just long enough to look down and see the knee replacements had broken, which she smiled at. And she was awake JUST long enough to feel a sense of dread and horrow as she heard a mechanical whirring behind her and a heavily computerized voice thanking her for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position, and just barely awake to feel the sensation of asphalt sliding beneath her as she was dragged back into Aperture.


End file.
